‘Pure hell’ killer drug still on sale

As soon as the heat kicks in, the nausea sets in, and the lethargy kicks my ass...I KNOW ITS WORKING.

A bodybuilder posting as jdmhdd1

The drug DNP was in the system of Sarah Houston, 23, who was found dead in her bedroom last year.

After her inquest last month Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to crack down on trade in the substance that has so far been linked to 62 deaths around the world.

But a Daily Star Sunday investigation found a host of websites and private sellers continuing to offer it to Brits as a “miracle” diet pill.

One website called steroid4u.eu is selling 200g of the odourless yellow tablets ate2.50 (£2.15) a go. And ­anabolics24.com promises to ship 100 100g capsules for £53.

Other online sellers boast they can get the pills sent straight to your door. One, called bzpTank, says he can sell buyers 50 200g pills for £55.

DNP is banned for use as a slimming aid but is freely sold on the web as it can also be used as a pesticide and in dyes. It has also been used to make photographic developer.

The Food Standards Agency has warned people not to use it and describes it as “extremely dangerous to human health”.

But the substance is still popular and widely used by bodybuilders and those desperate to lose weight.

On one website, a bodybuilder posting as jdmhdd1 said: “DNP is pure hell....ive cycled it 8 times since 2006.

“As soon as the heat kicks in, the nausea sets in, and the lethargy kicks my ass...I KNOW ITS WORKING.”

Victim Sarah, who suffered from an eating disorder, died at her student house in Leeds last ­September after consuming DNP capsules she ­had ordered from an Argentinian website run by a suspected cocaine ­smuggler.

Post-mortem results show she ­effectively boiled to death from the inside.

Her mum Gina, a retired ­pharmacologist from Chesham, Bucks, said: “The police took the view that since the sale of DNP is not illegal then no crime has been committed. That was very frustrating for us as parents.”

In February, fitness fanatic Sarmad Alladin, 18, known as “Mr Muscles”, died after taking the pills to lose weight.

Just hours before, the son of an Indian millionaire studying at the University for the Creative Arts in Surrey had praised the fat-burning tablets on Facebook.

In 2008, Selena Walrond from Croydon, south London, died after taking DNP she had bought online. At the time, her mum said: “DNP is lethal. If you want to lose weight do it the sensible way.”

The manufactured drug was launched as a slimming aid in the US in the 1930s but was banned there in 1938 due to the severe side-effects.

A study by specialists from London’s Whittington Hospital said: “DNP is reported to cause rapid loss of weight but is associated with an unacceptably high rate of significant adverse effects.”